If you enjoyed the confetti at the 2010 parade, just wait. The city has ordered 1 1/2 tons of paper bits for this year's bash.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

If you enjoyed the confetti at the 2010 parade, just wait. The city...

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After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Rose Trachtenberg, 12, holds back tears as the Giants ride down Market Street during the Victory parade on Wednesday Nov. 03, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif.After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Rose Trachtenberg, 12, holds back tears as the Giants ride down Market Street during the Victory parade on Wednesday Nov. 03, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif. Ran on: 11-04-2010Rose Trachtenberg, 12, can barely contain her joy as the Giants ride by along Market Street. Several hundred thousand people celebrated the baseball team&apos;s first championship since coming to San Francisco in 1958.Ran on: 11-04-2010Rose Trachtenberg, 12, can barely contain her joy as the Giants ride by along Market Street. Several hundred thousand people celebrated the baseball team&apos;s first championship since coming to San Francisco in 1958.Ran on: 11-07-2010Clockwise from above: Young fans scream as the Giants parade down Market Street. Aubrey Huff shows off his good luck thong while making a speech at City Hall. Players applaud the fans at the end of the Civic Center Plaza ceremony. Sergio Romo and Brian Wilson raise a &quo;Fear the Beard&quo; bandanna with pride as they walk along Montgomery Street.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Rose...

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After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Giants manager Bruce Bochy, holds the World Series Championship trophy as he comes down Montgomery Street during the victory parade on Wednesday Nov. 03, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Giants manager...

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After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Cole McKnight, 10, goes nuts at Tim Lincecum passes by during the victory parade on Market Street on Wednesday Nov. 03, 2010 in San Francisco, Calif.

Photo: Mike Kepka, The Chronicle

After the San Francisco Giants won the World Series, Cole McKnight,...

The Giants' parade down Market Street on Wednesday will be showered with 10 times the confetti of the World Series parade two years ago.

In all, the city is expected to shoot off 1 1/2 tons of tiny orange, non-color-bleeding, biodegradable, nontoxic, flame-retardant flecks out of 24 rooftop cannons positioned along the 1.7 -mile route up Market Street.

With the first part of the parade sticking this year to wide, wide Market instead of the narrower streets of the Financial District, "we needed a lot more," said Christine Falvey, spokeswoman for Mayor Ed Lee.

"It's the biggest single-shot order I've ever seen," said Brian Baker of Confetti Unlimited in Anaheim, which is supplying the stuff at $10 a pound. That works out to $30,000 worth of little paper bits.

As for the cleanup, that will take six sweeper trucks, two flusher trucks, four steamer trucks, 12 people walking with blowers and 40 people walking with brooms. Plus two trucks to haul it all away.

And speaking of celebrations, the city picked up 17.3 tons of broken bottles and garbage from the "celebrations" around town Sunday night and early Monday.

Happy hippo: After three long years, Tomus the Hippopotamus is about to return to his Sutro Heights home and get himself back together.

"The police have him now, but he'll be coming home any day - and with a police escort," said his owner, Dannette Peltier.

It's been almost three years since thieves snatched the 3-foot-tall, 500-pound bronze hippo statue off Peltier's front lawn.

The hippo, which Peltier bought at a Burlingame auction, had been with the family for 15 years.

Word of the hippo heist was forwarded to Bayview Station, where Officer Sue Lavinhad been assigned to keep an eye on the increasing number of metal thefts throughout the city.

"I had to laugh," Lavin said. "I mean, who would steal a 500-pound hippo?"

But she got a photo and sent copies out to the four scrapyards in the district.

"Around July, we got a call from one, saying they thought they had Tomus," Lavin said.

Unfortunately, he was also cut up into four pieces. And his head was gone.

That is until late last week, when narcotics officers stopped an ex-con with a sawed-off shotgun in his pack in the Taraval.

They did a follow-up search of his home on 12th Avenue and there, among the drugs and guns, was Tomus' head.

Peltier couldn't have been happier at the news.

"I've got people down at the (do-it-yourself) TechShop ready to weld him back together as soon as we can," Peltier said.

But if Peltier has her way, Tomus' return will be short-lived.

"I'd like to donate Tomus to a park where the kids can ride him," Peltier said. "He's very safe."

Rounding the bases: When Giants CEO and President Larry Baerstepped forward Sunday night on national TV to accept the World Series trophy from baseball Commissioner Bud Selig, it was the culmination of a personal triumph for the 55-year-old, fourth-generation San Franciscan.

Baer started his baseball life in 1978 while still at UC Berkeley and working as the sports director for the college station. Baer heard that then-Oakland A's owner Charlie Finley was without a station, so he called Finley out of the blue and offered to broadcast the team's games over the 10-watt KALX.

"Finley knew a good gimmick when he saw one, so he took the offer," Baer said.

When Baer heard in 1992 that his hometown team might be for sale and moving to Tampa, he phoned Safeway executive Peter Magowanand the two - along with real estate mogul WalterShorenstein, insurance executive Richard Goldmanand others - hatched a plan to rescue the team.

Magowan became team president and Baer executive vice president. When Magowan stepped down in 2008, attorney/investor Bill Neukomtook the helm. He was the one who accepted the team's World Series trophy two years ago, with Baer at his side playing second banana.

Neukom's leadership style, however, didn't sit well with all his fellow Giants owners, and he was forced to step aside last year - finally giving Baer his shot at the helm.

"Incredibly fulfilling and rewarding," Baer said of getting the trophy this time.

Can't say what's next, but Baer's name is often mentioned among insiders as someone who could wind up being mayor someday.